Confluence, Construction, Confrontation

The next shows I want to discuss are what's happening at the Whitney Museum.  Let it be known here and henceforth that the Whitney really is my favorite museum in New York, and I'm SO happy they're building another one by Renzo Piano.  So excited!  I still have no idea why they don't want to link it to the highline, I think that would be awesome, but anyway.

I had a total epiphany at the Whitney this visit.  Many of you who have been addicted to the museums for years will likely find this a very mediocre realization.  For the record, I have done countless circuits.  For a couple of years it was the contemporary art galleries.  For a couple years it was the houses of couture.  I saw everything going on, and looked closely.  And I've seen countless incredible retrospectives over the years.

But having made a pact with myself to see everything going on at the museums, it suddenly became blatantly clear to me for the first time this summer: all of New York City's major museums are in sync with one another.  

There is a room at the Whitney's Buckminster Fuller show that looks EXACTLY like the Model Room of the Olafur Eliasson show at P.S. 1.  That same room at the Whitney has photos of Fuller teaching and hanging out being goofy and brilliant with the artists at Black Mountain College (which included Jasper Johns), who are totally on display at the Jewish Museum.  The Action/Abstraction show is a wonderful contextual extension of Johns at the Met, and starts right on the tail end of Surrealism, as if taking up where the Dali show leaves off.  The Whitney's Fuller show includes a model of his Dymaxion House, and the MoMA's Home Delivery show has another copy of the same model.  The Whitney is also showing Paul McCarthy, whose work attacks our perception of our environments in much the same way--though, clearly, with a very different attitude--that Eliasson's work does.  Home Delivery in its own similar way asks us to reevaluate our attitudes toward the spaces we occupy.  The Whitney's Progress show ties McCarthy together with Fuller and Eliasson even more profoundly.  By showing the somewhat surreal Buster Keaton film at the entrance to both the Dali and Home Delivery, MoMA ties Dali together with Fuller and thereby everything else, around and around we go.

I'm not sure exactly how the Guggenheim's Louise Bourgeois fits in (although her work does at time confront environments on a much more quiet, intimate level), or the Turner for that matter, but I've got my brain working on it.

A friend of mine called attention to the fact that trends come together for everyone in these associated circles, that people start thinking along similar lines due to a collective unconscious, and of course that's true.  But the connections that are happening in the major shows going on right now are just too profound for me to consider them arbitrary.  I really believe the curatorship in New York is an integrated force affecting style and thought on the arts in this part of the world.  And I think the major museums are purposefully tying their shows together into one New York movement of thought.

In any case, it's difficult to think of anyone who made as profound a mark on the 20th Century as Buckminster Fuller, aside from maybe Marcel Duchamp and a few others.  He really was a crazy genius.

--Photo courtesy Presidential Medal of Freedom

One of the very best things about the show is right down there in the lobby.  They have one of the only three existing Dymaxion Cars on display.

--Photo courtesy Washed Ashore, where it's claimed Leopold Stokowsky owned one of them for a short time.
For all my love of automobiles, the 1930s, industrial design, and just technology in general, I don't think I've ever seen one in person.  It's very possible that the Henry Ford Museum has one, though, so I may have seen one there, without knowing what it was.  [EDIT: It looks as if they do, and that may be the same one.  You can see the same whited-out windows.]  It appears the HFM has the only full-scale prototype of the Dymaxion House (I wonder if MoMA asked them for it--although it might have been far too difficult to move).  I went there as a young tot, and that place was just amazing to me as a little kid, by the way.  Giant steam locomotives, wheeee!  It just occurred to me, that may have been the start of my life-long love affair with cars.  If you're ever in Dearborn, Michigan--heaven help you--you should definitely go to see it.

--Image Bowlus-Teller Trailers

Surrounding it, they have all these blueprints and construction drawings for the Dymaxion Car, as well, which were very cool to see.  Its engineering was remarkably simple, in fact.  The only problem with their Dymaxion Car, though, is that its windows are whited out, so you can't see inside of it.  It's possible that this is only the shell, with none of the inner workings, but even so, it still would've been interesting to see how the body was constructed.  And if the blocked windows wasn't the Whitney's doing, then they absolutely should have a couple of the doors open so you could see inside it.

--Photo London Design Museum

On the upper floor are all of his architectural endeavors, the 4D House, the Dymaxion House, his U.S. Pavilion for the 1967 Montreal Expo (there's another connection, by the way: the MoMA show has a model of Moshe Safdie's Habitat 67, which I really, really, really, really should have gone to see when I was in Montreal last summer), and his Dymaxion World Map and his work with spheres and domes and so on.

This is just absolutely astonishing, too:

--Photo Cedrick Thevenet

I think the coolest thing to consider--aside from the fact that he was probably even more brilliant than I realized having heard over the years about so many of his contributions to our world--was how he was one of the first people to ever seriously think about sustainability.  The idea to make that a biosphere in the first place, and for him to be concerned with reconciling the proportions of world maps, shows this intense understanding, this universal perception of what the earth really is.

There's also this truly awesome telegram from him to Isamu Noguchi explaining Einstein's general theory of relativity.  Oh, and a monument floating above the East River he proposed for the United Nations (Eliasson again):

--Image University of Auckland

It'd have been very cool if they'd done a CGI rendering of that.  But the show has a lot of great illustrative drawings, fascinating models, videos, and a few interesting surprises.  The Whitney did a great job, once again.

The McCarthy is okay.  It's very abrasive, confrontational, and disorienting, which is obviously what the artist intended.  It's sort of the opposite side of the same coin as Eliasson, who makes the viewer a part of the work in an almost welcome, embracing sort of way, drawing your attention to how you occupy space very gently and serenely.  McCarthy's work downright attacks you with it.

I wanted to post a couple of these videos of his, too, because they are just sooooooo weird and creepy:

Of course a poignant and satirical critique of the art world and its personalities, but...yeah...weird.

This is so disgusting and disturbing on so many levels I couldn't help but just laugh (NOT for the weak of constitution):  

In any case, if you believe, as I do, that art shouldn't necessarily be comforting, but rather that it should push buttons, be provocative, and force us--even against our will, if necessary--to reevaluate our modes of thought, then for sure the McCarthy does plenty of that.

©2008, Ryan Witte

Finds

I just found out something kind of interesting in my research.  The original acoustics for Philharmonic Hall in Lincoln Center were designed by the firm of Bolt, Beranek & Newman, now known as BBN Technologies.  I received a nice email from Leo Beranek, he's 94 years old and the only surviving person to work on the project.

The complex calculations required by acoustics led them into computers and in the late 1950s, they bought some of the first computers, including Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP-1, the computer hardware that played history's first video game.  They implemented the first person-to-person computer network, ARPANET, which became...this...and they were the first to use the "@" symbol for email addresses.

They had originally specified acoustics for a hall of 2400 seats, but the New York Herald Tribune launched a successful campaign to increase the size of the hall (it's now 2742), which completely negated all BBN's acoustic design specifications.

For the record, the hall was renovated by Cyril M. Harris and Philip Johnson in 1976 with $10.5-million from Avery Fisher and the name of the building was changed to thank him.  It's somewhat problematic that they intend to renovate again in 2010, because the Fisher estate will raise legal issues if they try to change the name again.  It may lead them to keeping the Avery Fisher name for the building, and naming the auditorium after a new donor.

I thought this was a little strange until I realized that the auditorium at the Met is actually called the Sybil B. Harrington Auditorium, because Harrington bequeathed like $7-million a year to the Met or something outrageous--money which can only be used for classical opera, by the way, nothing new.

I tried to get in contact with Cyril Harris at Columbia University, in fact, but he's evidently not in the best of health and doesn't lecture there much anymore.  He's well into his 90s, also, I'm sure.

Ryan Witte

Ghosts of Furniture Future

This is the second post resulting from Council, who obviously have extremely good taste.  But I wanted to break it up to talk about this team they represent, San Francisco's One & Co.  I thought they deserved their own post.

Here's the stuff they're doing for Council, their "Aura" credenza:

Interesting things with light and shadow, opaqueness and translucence, it's a suave piece for sure.

Here's their "Chrysalis" stool:

Very simple, but great sleek angular lines, delicate but strong.  The seat is soft leather.

When I saw this one at the show, my mouth gaped open--the "Periodic Table":

Four giant slabs of wood, and looking at them now, I suppose they could very well be railroad ties, soaked in actual molten silver.  The silver soaks into the wood, though, so you can still see the grain.  This is likely way too heavy for me to ever get it into my apartment (if they wanted to give me a free sample), but it's truly unbelievably gorgeous.  It's hard to see here, but it has a real mirrored finish to it, it's quite striking.

Here's a couple chairs they did exploring new ways of using plastics to come up with surprisingly comfortable results.  I gather the name ADKD Furniture is their own for the case study:

Click them.  That second one has a pattern of little Man symbols perforating it.  I can't be certain, but it appears to me that the pattern of them responds to the support required by a person sitting in it, so it will flex and tighten in all the right places.

This concept is from their Welcome line.  There's a number of really amazing ideas that reinterpret the experience of inviting people into your home, but I most liked this one:

It's a coffee table and a digital jukebox, wired into your mp3 collection.  Guests can also download their own music into it, but it allows them to choose music from the library to play while you hang out.  There appears to be text scrolling around the outside edge of it, so I'm thinking maybe that's touch-sensitive.  In any case, a wonderfully interactive, social solution.

One & Co also appears to have a feel for watches.  Here's the Triax S line for Nike:

And these last ones completely blew my mind.  They were entries in the Timex 2154 Competition, which asks for visions of what watches will look like in the future.  This one was a runner-up:

It uses a magnetic field to exploit the metallic content of the wearer's blood to hover above the wrist, and never actually touches it:

And this one was so awesome, but then, I just love nanobots:

In the morning, you stick it onto your wrist (or wherever) for a few minutes like a Band-Aid.  It embeds nanobots right under the surface of your skin, and then you peel it off and go.  Your skin actually becomes the readout.  Organic nanobots dissolve after a few days, and then you can put on a new one.  I also love how they make a decorative pattern in the skin, also, like a tattoo.  I see no reason why that couldn't keep changing, as well.  I wonder what it would feel like, like would you constantly be feeling these tiny robots moving around under your skin?  I suppose you'd get used to it after a while and forget all about it, right?  Anyway, that's incredibly cool.

One & Co

415-621-6214

©2008, Ryan Witte

Bon Appetite

This is another post that will be sort of like many posts in one, but it all stems from a group called Council from San Francisco (of course: truly some of the most astonishing design work is coming from there lately), but the designers are potentially from anywhere in the world.

First up is Mike & Maaike from San Francisco, who I spoke to and wrote about for the magazine last year.  I'm not going to go into the stuff I saw then, but if you don't know about them, I highly recommend looking through their website, because they really are brilliant.

Anyhow, for Council, they've designed the "Mute" chair and ottoman, which is just peaceful, simple, and lovely:

Next is Nendo, working out of Japan.  For Council he's designed this bookshelf called "Radial":

Sorry about the weird image, they don't have the images from their photo shoot, yet.  But basically it forces its perspective with the vertical panels.  I think it's very smart because it would make itself, and therefore your room, appear far, far bigger and longer than it actually is.

Not for Council, but to be found on his website were a couple of other cool items, these are "Polar" tables for a company called Swedese:

They're basically nesting tables, but the glass is polarized in just such a way that, when it overlaps, it creates these really interesting floral patterns.

Conceptually, it's a great idea, but I'm sure that seen in person, the optical effect of this--where you can't quite tell where the flowers are coming from, would be quite magical.

And this pitcher and tumbler set:

That's not necessarily cold.  It has nubbly blobs of glass on the outside and the glass is smokey toward the bottom.  It would look like that even with a hot liquid in it.  I think that's a fantastic optical illusion.

And lastly, here's Khodi Feiz from the Netherlands.  For Council he's created this "Peel" line, which is fantastic--the ottoman:

But it's hiding something:

Such a simple idea, but I think very clever, streamlined, and flexible.  Here's the chaise:

Not for Council, but for the Dutch Embassy in Berlin, Feiz designed these chairs:

It's carved very geometrically out of one solid block of polystyrene foam.  Its lines are so Space Age and sleek, but I think it looks totally comfortable--it bends under your weight--and evidently perfectly fine for outdoor use; it sounds like it was designed for a park-like space.  Here's the upholstered version, which is interesting in its own unique way:

He also did these portable speakers for Nokia:

He did an especially tiny speaker set--as in you could wear it around your neck like a pendant--but I thought these were awesome.  They can be hooked up wirelessly to any bluetooth device.  They click together with magnets, protecting the speakers:

The heavy duty cable becomes a carrying strap.  Now that's seriously clever.

Council

415-550-1750

©2008, Ryan Witte

Give Them a Hand

Charles & Marie show such an incredible selection of design items, it would be impossible for me to discuss them all.  But their booth was one of a small number at the show that inspired me the most, and Marcus, the guy who spoke to me, was extremely nice, helpful, and seemed excited to be there--with good reason.

One of the things I liked most was just a prototype; they tell me its in production now, but so there are no images of it yet.  When it comes out maybe I'll do a quick update.  But it was brilliant on so many levels.  They're called Fountain champagne glasses.  It's a set of six beautiful champagne glasses, each one about an inch shorter than the last.  All but the last of them has a spout, so you pop open the bottle and pour the champagne into the first, tallest of them.  As each one fills up, the champagne pours over into the shorter one next to it, until they're all full.  The six of them together are perfectly sized to hold one full bottle of champagne.  Amazing.

First of all, I can't even count how many times I've had to sip the foam off the top of an overflowing champagne glass (I guess I get too eager).  But more importantly, it's so wonderfully ceremonial and celebratory, just what you want from a bottle of champagne.  I can't wait for them to come out.

They also had this "Phonofone" mp3 player amplifier:

It's ceramic and the one at the show was in gold.  This black one is limited edition.  But it uses no power.  It amplifies through the same analog means that the old Victrolas did, passively.  The sound still comes from your earbuds, in other words.  They admit it's not going to really blast your music super loud, but still fine for the office or a dinner party, etc.

But I was also really excited about the work of Zelda Beauchampet of the Netherlands, who C&M were representing.

Not at the booth, but to be found on her website, was this very cute, interesting item, "Identity Matters":

The way I understand it, it has several different layers of fabric, with the fabric panels stitched somewhat loosely.  So as you cuddle with your bear over the years, the panels will wear off, one by one, leaving a trace of the love behind:

Best of all, though, was her "Handscape."  I thought this was such an incredible idea, I was probably gushing a little when she came over to talk to me.  It's a landscape for your fingers:

Click that.  There's little buildings, trees, a bird, a bunny, sold individually or in sets of three:


Here's her online shop.

I was raving about this to my coworkers the weekend of the ICFF, and they expressed concerns that something like this would keep getting caught on your clothing and snag your sweaters and whatever.  So I asked Beauchampet about that, and she said only we silly Americans ever ask that question (she put it more nicely than that), and she's never had any problem with it.  Personally, I think it'd be worth it to be careful how you're flailing your hands around to wear something so cool and fun.

Zelda Beauchampet

info@zlda.nl

©2008, Ryan Witte

Body and Soul

I was introduced to the work of Heidi Taillefer at a fantastic gallery in Montreal last year, and decided to have a conversation with her.  The interview is a little longer than I'd anticipated, but she just had such interesting things to say.  Here's my interview with her, for your enjoyment.

--Silence is Golden (2005), oil on canvas

Ryan Witte: Your paintings are in some ways quite precise.  Would you say your studio--your working environment--is also precise, immaculate, and well-organized, or do you get messy while you work?

Heidi Taillefer: I get messy, the place gets messy, it's all fertile chaos.  Then after each painting is done, sometimes after a month or more...I clean up and start all over again.  It's quite refreshing to strip all the confusion and dirty rags and paint particles away to start fresh.  It invigorates and adds momentum to the beginning stages of a work, which I find quite a challenge.  It's like breaking out of an egg, I suppose.  The rest is easier.

RW: That's as long as it takes you to complete one?  Not all that much more than a month? You must work extremely long hours!

HT: I don't get as much painting done as you'd think!

RW: You're said to come from a very creative family.  Are your parents artists, also?

HT: My mother is an artist with a great sense of humor, and my father is very musical with a logical business side.  But he was a huge mischief-maker and is entertained by shenanigans still, so I would consider that to be creative (or playful), as well.  

--Amphibious (1993), watercolor on paper

RW: What do they think of your work?

HT: I had a lot of freedom to create and if I didn't, I just did it anyway--the result of my father's influence.  I had great parents; lots of love with enough strictness to become functional, and freedom/ independence to strike out and make it happen with a touch of chaos to stir the pot and generate a flurry of imaginative ideas.

--The Argument (1993), watercolor on paper

RW: It seems the Terminator films had a big effect on you.  They're great.  What did you think of this most recent one, Rise of the Machines?

HT: I actually haven't seen that one, yet.  I stopped focusing on the Sci-Fi films after my adolescence and focused on Classical myths, which were woven into the vocabulary of Sci-Fi imagery I'd established for myself already.  That is now tied in with current trends in examining technology in art, which I try to marry with our fundamental human nature--which is totally separate from Technology (primordial, universal, what the ancient cultures and religions explored).

RW: Don't you suppose our technology is threatening to become so sophisticated (with Artificial Intelligence, the drastic prolonging of life expectancy, and so on) that it could begin raising very fundamental questions about human nature?

HT: Yes, but I don't see how longevity interferes with human nature.  Maybe Artificial Intelligence, for sure.  But there's no going back without a cataclysm, so the only choice is to run forward with it and get mature and wise people into the fray to offset the inevitable tide of craziness that will come with the foolish and corrupt--living longer and being more intelligent, too.

RW: Oh, completely.  The way I tend to understand them, anyway, pretty much all of our spiritual philosophies throughout human history stem from either questions of mortality and death, or reproduction and social relationships--all of which would be drastically affected if we lived to be 800 instead of 80.

HT: I think our spiritual philosophies transcend death altogether and deal with love, trust, the ego, morality for sure--but the nature of events--as being more neutral, and there being a need for synthesis and unity.  Time adds a constraint in that there are only so many experiences we can have to deal with this, but just as Greek gods faced the same human foibles, yet remained immortal, so would we go through the same dramas--just drawn out over longer periods of time.  Maybe in the past longevity didn't exist as a possibility, so it was never sewn into the myths and philosophical representations...but they were, actually: the bible speaks of Moses being 800 years old, I think...something like that.  Sloppy as it sounds, Time and Philosophy are not mutually exclusive, other than philosophizing on the limits of time.

RW: Yes, I understand what you're saying, especially about mythological figures.  Perhaps you're right.

So right after the Lindberg baby was kidnapped, Salvador Dali's wife, Gala, showed up at a party with a doll that looked like the bloody corpse of the baby on her hat, and everybody completely freaked out.  I love that story.  Do you think your personal style in dress and demeanor reflects who you are as a painter?

HT: Not at all.  I may have my own style at times, but I live out my expression through lifestyle and art production.  At first glance, you'd never think I was an artist...which I kind of like.  I don't need another avenue of expression; it's automatically inherent, even if I try to go the conventional route.  But if I told you my life story you would think I was different, for sure.

RW: I wasn't aware that you'd designed the theme for a production of Cirque du Soleil until I looked around for more information about your work.  I absolutely loved the one I saw, though.  Had you seen any of their shows before you were approached to collaborate with them?

HT: I had seen a couple shows a few years back, but when I was told who the poster contract was for, I had no idea how big they were at the time, believe it or not.  Mind you, they were still at a more intermediate stage then, ten years ago.  It was an ad agency that approached me.

RW: What was your impression of what they do?

HT: I had found their shows inspiring in the stimulus I received, visually and musically.  But I'd say, by now, there needs to be much more edge to the shows.  I'm quite familiar with them and they need to be weirded-up more, made much more surreal, although the acrobatics are incredible (I would accept to help direct a show!).

RW: I hope they ask you!  I kind of agree, from what I've seen, that their surrealism could be made a more cohesive element in the way the show flows.  The comedian Kathy Griffin, on the other hand, has a whole hilarious bit about how she loved the contortionists, but she doesn't need to see a clown very slowly rolling a beach ball across the stage and going "AYE AYE AYE."  So I guess some people don't quite get their quirkiness.

--Venus Envy (1999), oil on canvas

So much of what I read about your work zeroes right in on your meshing of animate and inanimate forms.  I love that duality--I probably wouldn't mind being a cyborg someday.  But to me, that seems to completely miss the point, or at the very least, is a relatively superficial take on your style.  One thing I'm struck by, for instance, is the incredible way you play with the idea of Gender.  Do you consider yourself to be a Feminist?

HT: I love men too much to be a Feminist!  I admire and respect their greater sense of equanimity when dealing with things, although that's a generalization, since it's just a reflection of the influences from women I saw from my past.  Women need to become more like men, be more radical and less emotional and dependent on having a man.  But not to trump men, just to draw from their strengths.  And men could do the same with women and their strengths (which includes sensitivity and greater observation--it's very useful, especially in business, for example--the founder of the Cirque du Soleil operates very much on intuition, a feminine quality, and it has helped him dramatically).

I definitely don't like double standards, because they nullify too much of what women could offer and trivialize their abilities, as if they were useless.  But men and women are different, for sure.  It's just that women's attributes and qualities need to be recognized and not overpowered by men, who only validate nuts-and-bolts facts, whereas women are almost more esoteric, somehow.  It's the intuition: a product of motherhood and the need to read between the lines and understand beyond language.

--The Ventriloquist (2007), oil on canvas

Women need to emulate the strength men possess, while remaining true to their femininity, which is quite powerful in itself.  But men need to stop trying to domineer women.  It makes them seem threatened or something.  That's one way I may be a Feminist--I have trouble being domineered, unless I respect and accept the man's superiority as an individual, but it has nothing to do with gender.  If I am respected and appreciated, I will gladly cooperate and follow.  

I also think women tend to be much stronger and courageous, emotionally.  So combine it with men's greater inclination toward logic and imagine the synthesis!  I think the bottom line is that women need to be given the chance to meet challenges from a young age and not overprotected as they are just because they're "cute little girls."

--I Put a Spell on You (2006), oil on canvas

RW: What might your thoughts be on our current ability to surgically reassign a person's sex?

HT: Well, I think it's an individual's decision, which is their business and impacts them the most--but often families reject transgender relatives, from what I understand.  In the animal kingdom, it would appear that bisexuality is quite normal in nature and beneficial in sustaining peace and harmony among groups.  But a transsexual person is flirting with the notion of bodily mutilation of some kind, and I think there is a primal aversion to that; the same way people don't like cosmetic surgery, and Judaism doesn't like tattoos, etc.  

I don't know enough about Psychology, but if a person is truly unhappy as a man or a woman and wants to change, I wouldn't have a problem with it, unless it meant losing a man I was in love with or my dad, then I might be affected.  But for sure it is unsettling to think of so much toying with nature, although I think cloning is fascinating.  It's a matter of stretching the envelope and getting used to different ideas.  I'm sure most of the advances in medicine and nutrition and the like would have shocked and offended people a few hundred years ago.  So there is a continual evolution in public perception which lags behind the initial technological advances.

--Frustration Attraction (2006), oil on canvas

RW: Would you say there's a discord between the bodily mechanics of our sexuality and the emotions that accompany them?

HT: Let me see how to answer this...in Western culture today, yes.  It seems fashionable to become sexual immediately or soon after meeting someone new, regardless of the chemistry.  I do believe there can be an immediate chemistry which draws people together in some instances, but there seems to be this exaggerated expectation of sexual intimacy as a social norm soon after meeting someone, regardless of the more delicate aspects of interpersonal connections.  When sex for its own sake becomes a general norm, it amounts to such shallow and superficial encounters with little meaning--which turn into lonliness--and many people aren't even aware of why that is.

However, I have to say, after being to Brazil, which is a country of seething sensuality and bodily comfort, things feel a little different, and that sexual veneer is quite liberating.  The same holds true of French culture, but I think the difference may also lie in the fact that they incorporate an appreciation of pleasure of all things into life: food, music, arts, business, and physicality.  But after a while, you can't get past the limitations of sexual mechanics, and I think the family values upheld in (at least Brazilian) culture helps bridge the sterility of pure sexual mechanics.

--Sneaky Work at the Crossroads (2006), oil on canvas

However, the Vedic religions (Hinduism, etc.) originally understood the fundamental connection that does exist between bodily "sexual mechanics" and emotion, as explored through Tantric practices, which encouraged a devotion to the entirety of the other person, body and soul.  There, the body is the tool, or vehicle, or "machine," through which the essence of two (or more) people can merge, express their truest vulnerabilities through the act of intimacy and trust in the safety and care the other is offering--via the respect and devotion of each person's divine essence...and body.  Pretty nice, eh?

RW: Sounds very intense.

HT: It is why it has such a healing influence on so many ills suffered by an individual.  So there is definitely a synthesis to be had between the two, it's the philosophical perspective that makes the key difference.

--Silverfish (2005), oil on canvas

RW: Do you have any pets?

HT: I had pets growing up: cats, a dog, a snake, piranha, budgies, raised guppies, hamsters, salamanders, ants, etc...and now I'm thinking of getting a cat.

RW: Holy cow!  It's no wonder your work is so full of animal imagery.  Did you often draw or paint your pets?

HT: Not back then.

--Nothing and Yet... (2006), oil on canvas

RW: Are you a vegetarian or vegan?

HT: I became a vegan in my early-20s, for ethical reasons.  Then it became easier to include fish and seafood, and occasionally dairy and eggs.

RW: Why are you a vegetarian?

HT: It's only because of the factory farm industry and its hugely destructive environmental impact--and morally, it's way too cruel--the ultimate slavery.

RW: Oh, yeah.  One thing that really hit me hard was how unbelievably destructive the farming of shrimp is.  You've probably seen this before, but they basically dredge anything and everything up off the ocean floor, tearing out everything that gets in their path for miles at a stretch.  The shrimp amount to like 5% of what they bring up, the other creatures die, and then they just dump the rest back into the ocean as waste.  It's horrible.  Do you think you'd be less inclined to feel the way you do about your diet if we lived 1000 years ago and collected all our own food?

HT: The reason I became a vegan/ vegetarian was because of the cruelty, then the environmental damage, which is hard to avoid anywhere now.

--The Muse (2006), oil on canvas

RW: Are the human subjects in your pieces friends of yours?

HT: They are usually friends, and I take photos from which I then paint.

RW: Lucky for them.  I'll be sure to send you a photo of myself so I can be in one of your upcoming paintings.

--Govinda and the Heifer Nymph (2007), oil on canvas

There are also deeply spiritual implications in your work.  Do you believe that icons, particularly those represented by the visual arts, become somehow more "alive" as a result of being worshipped, fetishized?

HT: Any image gets a certain life of its own once it's worshipped, just as celebrity confers an almost divine quality onto a person.  They seem set apart from "regular" people and are expected to be above all the noisy and clumsy happenings of everyday life.  Symbols are powerful things.  They can galvanize forces such as armies, or populations, groups, etc., and that power is a mechanism which seems alive unto itself.  Once they are a target of focus, they channel our own inner power and may seem life-like--just like the Orishas of Candomblé or African fetishes.

--Chimeric (2005), oil on canvas

RW: Did the creatures in your pieces come into existence in the form we see them, or did some outside force combine, alter, genetically mutate, change their physical composition?  Is this state painful or awkward for them--like an animal with only three legs--or does it feel perfectly natural for them?

HT: Well, their altered form is meant to be felt as would a real being's altered form.  So missing a leg might represent hobbling of some kind, depending on what animal is "represented" at the time.  A goat with a broken leg might signal diminished potency, as the goat is also a symbol of sexuality.  Although sexuality symbolizing potency does not mean potency is of a sexual nature, exclusively.  It could be potency as energy, etc.  But if the leg is jagged, yes, then it hurts the animal.  If it's just a string of bells instead of a leg, it's just an anomaly, inconvenient as it may be.

RW: Do you suppose it's painful having some of their parts be machinery, or is it more like having a fake hip or an artificial heart: painful at first, but then the body adapts?

HT: I think only the surgery would hurt without an anesthetic!  And maybe scarring, after, for a while.

RW: Certainly I could interpret and interpret until my brain explodes, but viewers of artworks can often get into trouble doing that.  When I asked him about your work, the man at Yves LaRoche Gallerie in Montreal told me practically every object in your pieces has some specific meaning.  Perhaps you'd go through one of them for me--and why not the one he was motioning to--Auto Erotic Immolation.  Could you describe, as succinctly as possible, what each symbol represents for you, its reason for being there?

HT:  More and more, the elements aren't as individually significant as before, but there are key elements which are.  In Auto Erotic Immolation, the painting is about self-destruction through erotic pursuits.  That destruction is meant as a change of state, not as a negative impact.

--Auto Erotic Immolation (2005), oil on canvas

• The snakes in the hair are Medusa snakes = bad, or in this case, sin.
• The hands are sensual, and preoccupied with the self.
• She is a Sati, or Hindu woman, who throws herself into the funeral pyre, so her many arms attest to Hindu culture, as do the Hennaed hands.
• The image is decorative and pretty because it is happy, nonetheless.
• Red because of the inherent sensuality.
• The snails symbolize (very active) feminine arousal.
• The snakes at the base of the spine indicate Kundalini energy (represented by coiled snakes, usually), which pierce the chakras via sexual activity.
• The breasts are traditional Indian hunting lanterns.
• There is a plecostomus in the stomach in place of a baby.  The preoccupation with motherhood is frustrated, but present, nonetheless, and its associated symbols (breasts, uterus) are sterile or diverted from the real thing: the plecostomus echoes the presence of life, but doesn't allow for the real thing to take hold; and there is no milk in the breasts, rather, lantern oil, which burns along with the subject of the painting.  You can see flames at the bottom right.
  

RW: I'm going to pat myself on the back just a tiny bit because I feel like I was getting most of that--some of it maybe subconsciously--but I'm not convinced I could have gotten it all, or at least not very exactly.  Are you attracted to the idea of using symbolism from cultures other than ours here in North America (or Western Europe) because of the mystique they can have for a "normal" (relatively culturally isolated) viewer, or do you believe many symbols transcend any one specific culture?  In other words, do you believe certain symbolic elements--say snails, or the color red--come to represent certain ideas by a process that's more universal to the human condition (however subconscious it may be) than it is cultural?

HT: I'm not sure if there are universal symbolic elements.  I'd say yes--like a skull is a symbol of time and mortality--there are elements which cross over into the transpersonal, like Jungian psychology would suggest, which is very tied into Surrealism and the subconscious.

--Bemoaning the Loss of Limbo (2006), oil on canvas

RW: The tensions in your work are often quite palpable, emotional and symbolic rather than optical.  Do dissatisfactions often drive your work?  Is painting a catharsis?

HT: A painting is carthartic, for better or worse.  Dissatisfactions fuel many ideas, and the painting process is a cathartic one which allows for a release of frustration, a healing of the soul, greater understanding and wisdom, in general, and clarity of spirit.  It's clearly healthy and therapeutic.  But the problem is the source of ideas being dissatisfactions.  Sourcing oneself from challenges translates into a Sysyphian task of endless dissatisfaction and subsequent resolution to keep the flow going.  Very tiring!

RW: I tend to think life will just hand that to us whether we seek it out or not.  If at least you're drawing inspiration from it, you're making it work for you, rather than just being its hapless victim.

HT: Yeah, I think so, too.  It's 10% what happens and 90% how you react.  I think we each have a destiny of some kind and we're going to go through certain experiences no matter what.  But we can direct how it goes if we move onward and upward by our reactions, or else get sucked into mayhem and hell all over if we react in maladaptive ways.  It's all a matter of personal control.

RW: As long as it's not a secret, what do you have wet on the easel right at this moment?

HT: An image for an album cover of a winged mermaid.

RW: Thank you so much!

HT: It was my pleasure, and thank you for taking such a keen interest in my work.

Heidi Taillefer

art@heiditaillefer.com

©2008, Ryan Witte